gonna stop barbs

[luckynick]

for a tremendous amount of game i tend to have no bronze in sight just as i hit BW (beelined from start), and then in emperor i get screwed by stupid barb archer who are coming in no time, i find it completly stupid and pointless so i decided to play custom to be able to disable barbs. Unless i play inca of course who fear only axemen barb so you have time to get iron if no bronze in sight

 

[Mulholland]

Been there. Oaisis. No Iron. No Copper. Huge Map. Bit of a waste of time. Find your balance, but keep barbs on.

 

[Black Waltz]

Great. You don't like a game concept so rather then learning how to deal with it you go and turn the setting off? While you are at it why don't you make it so the AI can't build units and make every tech cost one beaker for yourself?

 

[voek]

Uhm, i am just curious why you decided to post this in the strategy&tips forum. Do you want to know if 'we' think it's a good idea or a viable strategy?

If you play without barbs, fine by me, you don't realy have to tell me. Offcourse they are sometimes frustrating, but hey that's part of the game for me. I think you should always try to cope your challenges, but if you don't want to. No problem, but why post?? Just curious.

P.s. If you don't have bronze, get iron or just plain archers?

 

[naterator]

Great. You don't like a game concept so rather then learning how to deal with it you go and turn the setting off? While you are at it why don't you make it so the AI can't build units and make every tech cost one beaker for yourself?

no barbs isn't really cheating, dude, since the AI gets an easier game too. i'll turn them off if i just want to screw around, if, as mentioned, the map isn't condusive to them, or if i'm getting my legs on a new difficulty. i still turn off tech trading sometimes just because i hate the AI beggars that come in waves after you get alphabet.

 

[voek]

Well i dont agree on that point. It depends on the level but on the higher levels the AI gets more units for start. With 3 archers at the start and having 'archery' barbs aren't a problem for the AI. So eliminating the problem for yourself will only make it easier for yourself.

When i start with 3 archers i would even love raging barbs, gi'me that exp!!

 

[Cam_H]

I tend to agree with voek ... great for getting a unit to Heroic Epic status, and often Barbarian cities are placed just where you want them for your own empire but with no 'diplomatic ramifications'.

 

[luckynick]

sorry twas just a flame, but my purpose is to point the fact that bad luck about barbs and ressource access can sometime ruin your game beyond any way of recovery.
I mean you either take the risky path to continue expansion and improvement, and sometime it end having a city razed by a puny barb.
The other choice is to oversecure, meaning you slow considerably your expansion/impro plans.
Either choice often lead to be unable to fill the gap you have with the AI considering cities/ressoures/wonders/ect...

 

[Black Waltz]

Barbarian's can be dealt with. Allowing them to provide challanges and even benefits with the right stratagy.

 

[atreas]

Barbarian's can be dealt with. Allowing them to provide challanges and even benefits with the right stratagy.

It isn't as you say - and I'm not even talking about Raging Barbs. Barbarian difficulty is closely related to the difficulty level/game speed/map type + number of opponents.

In simpler words, if you try to play an Immortal (not to say Deity) at a Large Pangea map with 6-7 opponents (that means, many empty areas in the middle) and Marathon speed, you will understand that there are many cases where no strategy except luck will save you - the numbers are intolerable. But that is a wrongly balanced aspect of the game, and most players that haven't tried Marathon at higher levels don't understand it.

For any decent player Barbarians are a problem until the first axemen come out of the box. But if you see 2-3 archers coming against your lone warrior, despite all your rushings, you have a very bad feeling.

 

[voek]

Yeah we all know that feeling, but for most, it's part of the game. The settings you talk about are not standard settings, so it's another kind of game. It has little point discussing situations which aren't 'normal' or 'standard'. Offcourse it's everybody's right to play it's own settings. I think the comments placed in this thread rever to barbs or no barbs in a standard setting.

 

[schekker]

I would consider marathon on a huge map with the default number of civilizations a 'standard' setting, and even on noble I found the barbarians to be a real pain there, especially if you start somewhere in the middle of a land mass and they come from all four corners.

So my gutt feeling is that the barbarian balancing is not quite right yet on marathon. Having said that, I don't turn them off, but they made me doubt the marathon setting sometimes.

 

[Black Waltz]

I play Epic, huge games. Yes. Barbarian's are a pain. But deal with them. Turning them off is silly.

 

[DeathsHead]

sorry twas just a flame, but my purpose is to point the fact that bad luck about barbs and ressource access can sometime ruin your game beyond any way of recovery.
I mean you either take the risky path to continue expansion and improvement, and sometime it end having a city razed by a puny barb.
The other choice is to oversecure, meaning you slow considerably your expansion/impro plans.
Either choice often lead to be unable to fill the gap you have with the AI considering cities/ressoures/wonders/ect...

SO what your saying is that due to bad luck you lose sometimes? Very true, but isnt that the nature of gaming really? You dont win every game. So what? In the circumstances you describe, I'd play until I was sure of the loss, then start another game. Thats the beauty of it.

 

[Agarwaen]

When you ho to BW, and don't research archery you bet, if the copper don't appear the barbs will punish you
Use a less riscky strategy or put your warrior on hill nearby to clear the fog

 

[luckynick]

When you ho to BW, and don't research archery you bet, if the copper don't appear the barbs will punish you
Use a less riscky strategy or put your warrior on hill nearby to clear the fog

sometime building so many warriors to unfog securely enough can be really bad for your early development. But you're right

SO what your saying is that due to bad luck you lose sometimes? Very true, but isnt that the nature of gaming really? You dont win every game. So what? In the circumstances you describe, I'd play until I was sure of the loss, then start another game. Thats the beauty of it.

So be it.

I suppose i just have to blme only myself. I am moving to play in harder conditions, let's say, higher levels, harder leader/civ.
IE : i am now playing washingtown, and let me say he's very poor compared to other financials leads as he lack mining AND hunting (to get quick archery if copper is missing). No mysticism as well so growing borders to fat cross is really hard.

I appologize for blaming the barbs it's not their fault

In fact i humbly ask for any hitn/advice on what to do with washingtown (tech order, units/buildings priority, ect..)

I don't want to switch back to cathy huyan and praetorus again, i ve played these leader too much

 

[naterator]

It depends on the level but on the higher levels the AI gets more units for start. With 3 archers at the start and having 'archery' barbs aren't a problem for the AI. So eliminating the problem for yourself will only make it easier for yourself

oh yeah, i didn't think of that. anyway, luckynick, when you turn the barbs back on, i find that if you can plaec archers on hills outside your territory, they can usually still hold off the axemen till you get BW (maybe not on marathon). remember to double them up or else it'll be a real disaster if one dies.

 

[jimbob27]

Barbs are justs a friendly reminder to keep your military strong.

If you turn them off....... I bet your first game will go something like this.

You'll spend the first few hundred turns chopping every single forest, until you've got every building and most of the world wonders.

At about 1 Ad. Monty will turn up and eat most of your civ.

At about 10 Ad, you'll quit the game.

 

[Yva!n]

LOL - I was never too worried about barbs until I was trying this gimmicky strategy to see if I could grab all religions on "emperor" (i don't really care about winning the game itself in this test). Basically this involved having a good starting city and bee-lining the religious techs. Which was all well and good until about 2000bc when the animals switched to barbarians and my only city was beset on all sides by an unending stream of warriors and archers. I think that initial report of enemy units was 12! LOL. The first time it happened I was eventually overwhelmed cuz I was trying to ignore the barbarians and continue my developing strategy. Then I thought, HEY I'M THE GREAT CAPAC I DONT HAVE TO TAKE THIS! When I tried it again I churned out Quechans and took it to the barbarians.

Which incidentally solved the second problem I had with this gimmick strategy. Which was that to grab the religions from the cheatin AI's you can't stray from the tech paths to take anything useful so my empire was way under developed. (the tech works out OK cus it seems that you can trade your way back at this early stage) So send off the now 10XP quechans to 'settle' those barbarian cities. Voila! Instant Empire.

 

[ownedbyakorat]

I wouldn't dislike barbs half as much if XP wasn't capped for killing them.